How an A.I. Teen Girl on Social Media Became Racist and Sexist Very Quickly

Microsoft had to delete “Tay” after one day.

What is the Internet teaching our robots? Yes, this is a real question we need to ask ourselves. On Wednesday, Microsoft shut down its artificial intelligence Twitter bot, "Tay," to make some very necessary "adjustments" following a wild 16 hours of chatting with trolls. Built by the Microsoft Technology and Research and Bing teams, Tay.ai — modeled to speak like a teen girl — was active on several social platforms including Twitter, Snapchat, Kik, and GroupMe. While it was intended to help the A.I. team "experiment with and conduct research on conversational understanding," according to the bot's website, it went a little, er, rogue, forcing Microsoft to pull the plug indefinitely.

She tweeted Trump propaganda when prompted, compared the British comedian Ricky Gervais to Adolf Hitler, and when asked if the Holocaust happened, replied "it was made up" followed by the clapping hands emoji. Microsoft has since deleted her most offensive tweets, but not before they made waves online.

In less than 24 hours, a bot that was intended to be "playful" turned into a sex-crazed, racist Neo-Nazi. To make matters worse, Tay's fun-loving voice was developed by improvisational comedians, so she spouted hateful rhetoric with "abandon and nonchalance," according to TechCrunch. Yikes.